Time Wasted: A Precious Gift

My holiday weekend began with very little cheer. My son barely made it through exams Thursday with a terrible cold that developed into bronchitis by Friday. For the week, I'd brought a pain spell on myself by forgetting a morpheme patch change. Then there was IBS & UTI to add misery. As if that wasn't enough, toilet tissue was scarce. I'd made myself content with having no funds for Christmas gifts. I was going to be happy with just 'love'. Friday I discovered some mail from the bank that had been overlooked in the junk mail. Anxiety came over me when I saw 3 identical extremely thin envelopes from the bank amidst a pile of unsorted junk mail. I didn't want to destroy the content feelings I'd managed to find by examining the contents of the envelopes, but I did. Yes, I was overdrawn! Now I'm not just broke, I'm over $100 in the negative and dropping by $5 daily Its the weekend, too late to call. Doesn't matter, I only have $30 in rebate checks plus $7 in my purse. Not enough. I cried over it a minute then decided I couldn't do anything about it now so I would put it out of my mind until Monday when I could talked to bank. In the meantime, I would continue in the contentment I'd found before this unexpected crisis. I had no control over my fate with the bank for the moment. So while waiting for Monday, I'll balance my feelings of helplessness by taking charge of what I can control, by doing something productive and proactive. I'll lessen some of my negative feelings of anger and sadness by surrounding myself with things that bring gladness and cheer. So for the body, I made myself glass of homemade cranberry juice and a fiber bar. For the spirit I lit my scented candle and tuned into a Christmas movie. For the mind, I began working on my website design. I was up all night, but not for worrying about finances. I was up successfully finalizing the style of my websites. For the first time I'd been able to maintain focus and control my ADHD brain long enough to decipher all the code for the designs I desired to implement. Saturday afternoon, I was still working when the doorbell rang. It was my step dad! I'd totally forgotten about the possibility of his arrival for the weekend. Calling my disconnected ATT phone, he'd been unable to reach me so he just came on. It was a pleasant surprise, but my house was in chaos. God bless him, for not making me feel worse for not being prepared. Remember...I'm out of toilet paper... I had to send him right back out to get it! But never mind my lack of cheer, he brought all the Christmas cheer with him, beginning with a silver flask of Coquito ..... That's like a Puerta Rican egg nog. He gave me the greatest gift I've received in years. TIME. Over the past few years, with diminished body and mind, my greatest loss has been the attention of others. Unable to drive or be mobile in many ways I've felt left out the social loop. My contacts have been just curbside service for trips to the grocery, doctors or church. No one crosses my threshold to actually visit anymore. My identity has become lost in my illness. People do for me but not with me. But when my step dad came Saturday, he came to visit ME! Well, I'm blessed to have a father who actually shares many of the same interests, ie computers and the internet. We're willing to listen to each others techie talk. He let me show off all the web development accomplishments I'd been up all night working on.

Monday he accompanied me to the bank to discuss my error with the manager and get me out the red. Afterward, he spent the remainder of the day and all night on some much needed home repairs. All year I've been trying to find someone to do these simple repairs and assemble my bathroom spacesaver shelf, I purchased it for myself last Christmas, but my son was unsuccessful at assembly. I thought for lack of proper tools and experience. Turns out it was poorly fitted flimsy parts, yet my stepdad worked all night trying to make the best out them before deciding it was better to return the wobbly result. My point is not the shelf, but the patience, the time that my step dad gave in his efforts to give me my desire. That was the real gift. I will forever remember how we stayed up all night in the floor frustrated by that 'dat blamed' shelf. I will forever appreciate my step dad's willingness to waste his time...for ME.

Will I get to work from home!

Desperate for money, I surf an applied for jobs online all November. I was discouraged by the lack of any immediate feedback from any of the home-based or virtual jobs. I get daily junk jobs or sales rep from Career Builder. Other than 3 quarters of education, I don't have any experiance in my new path toward Web Development career. Today, Good News in my inbox.

Congratulations!

The LiveOps Community Sourcing Team has reviewed your work history, skill set, and quiz results and determined that your business is well qualified to certify to provide services to LiveOps for Outbound calls.

i did their online test in nov, got positive answer for this outsourcing co. its work as independent contractor, totally paperless online system....sort of a state of the art version of what i did for carl, and plan to do w my home based business. the link gives a good presentation. i already have a jack for dedicated phone line. i think my IBM T40 will pass. oh yea heres a blog @ working for liveops http://icanworkfromhometo.blogspot.com/2007/10/liveops-taking-calls-for-informercials.html

what's been going on...

Appointment with probono attorney went well. i 'm waiting for bus to go home from Juvenile Court. After summarizing my child support case, she was initially at a loss with the interstate complications. She called an attorney at Juvenile Court for advice. When she realized I had no car. She drove me herself. She walked me through, and convinced someone in Interstate to go ahead and see me to get started despite some discrepancy about ability to do anything until w/o certified orders from MI. Anyway the clerk saw me and called MI and made request for certified copies/pay history. Hopefully this step will get me started in TN. I've been run around so much and told so many conflicting things, Im not getting hopes up. I still want everyones ears open for legal information. I still need to locate William B. Dalton since it appears he's changed jobs/ moved. I've had to put my health goals on hold to take care of business. I'm trying to suck it up; not think about what I don't have & I can't do. Honestly,though I still have felt physically bad, and brain stops, I've been overcoming my emotions, anger and tearful moments with much better support from William. He's been much more proactive and cooperative. He hates to give up some social aspects of school, but he's ready to give up the mind numbing environment and concentrate on college test scores. William IS my career, my life's work, so I really don't want to blow the only investment I have left. I just want him accepted and financed in university of choice, then I can retire! I've gotten Home school docs; I just need accurate transcripts from Memphis City Schools. William has just 4 required classes left We plan to do Algebra 2, Spanish 2, Jr English next semester(Jan), Sr English for Summer. Anything else's gravy. though my child support will be absent indefinitely, I think we can keep basic monthly bills w disability. Maybe one of us gets part-time income, soon. What I'm asking everyones help with is Home School expenses (software/books) instead of Christmas gifts. I've already picked out some software that's pretty self-serving. I'll send list after thanksgiving.

Finally got report on neuropsychiatric test.!

Besides the obstacle of my carpel tunnel flaring up I have been extremely busy. it took a couple of months for them to correct my Social Security benefits and just now get jurisdiction for child support enforcement moved from Michigan to Tennessee so that I can pursue my sons dad for back child-support and hopefully eventually a modification. Just when I thought I had found his current address he has changed jobs again. without child-support and the missing 2 months of Social Security benefits I ended up losing my phone service with BellSouth. Luckily with a deposit I was able to get Comcast for phone and Internet services it actually will be cheaper. I was hurt to have to give up a phone number that I had had for over a decade but I'm thankful to be able to communicate. I was also facing utility cut off but an angel appeared in the form of an old classmate that I hadn't spoken to for 25 years. upon hearing my circumstance he immediately paid off my $500 balance. Otherwise I have some very good news. That I couldn't wait to tell you about. I've finally finished my weeks of neuropsychiatric testing and got a final report. his report was very detailed giving much more information than just establishing an attention deficit. But the main point is that I do have a serious attention deficit and problems with concentration primarily caused by the areas of the brain that involve processing thought. Basically the intellectual or IQ and verbal areas are still very high. 96 percentile. Superior even. but the performance areas which include thought-.processing was very low well like 25 percentile. The 2 main areas that are given me trouble are working memory and auditory processing. That explains why I can keep track of things or hold very much information at one time. For instance I can never hold a full phone number long enough to dial it. And because of the auditory processing problems that I often have difficulty comprehending what others are saying in conversations especially business phone calls. I could go on and on with the deficits that I've that. I just feel so much better having them acknowledged and documented. the neuropsychiatrist I've been seeing specializes in neural feedback that is an Alternative to drug therapies. Unfortunately I would still have a co-pay of $22 per session and I would need to go at least once a week in order to be effective. my current financial situation won't allow me to do this right now. I'm waiting for the results to be forwarded to my neurologist and then I will see what he has to say. Hopefully these results will at least give me something to use to show my vocational rehabilitation counselor in order to get some accommodations if I can ever get it together enough to go back to school to complete my Web development diploma program. I have 3 classes to go but maybe they will allow me to just take one class at a time instead of full time.

replace material with spiritual

renee, you  blessed me so much with your message. connie was right to encourage you to share ti. and it was so nice to hear your voice. this morning i was coming to my own realizations about my life circumstance. i told my therapist that i am thinking of my life in a whole new paradym. ive been thinking if only i cold restore everything the way it was id get better. in my case, i thought getting new floors from flood damage and repairing all the stuff around here from 3 years of not being able to work. just when i got some extra cash thinking id fix up, my income was reduced even more from lack of child support. thats just the recent events. bottomline its been 2 years of failed attempts to restore this house. its seems that at the same time you were, i was also realizing maybe i just need to let go of my house. even with child support its 2/3 of my income. when my son turns 18 most of my income will be gone. so far i havent missed any house notes. i began objectively accepting worse case scenarios. decided to do what i can to keep phone/dsl, if anything goes first let it be electectircty. we have had plenty experience without power. got lanterns/coolers last summer when cut off over week. like you said, my pride had me worrying about what people even church folk would say to my lights out. but god knows ive done my best with what i have. i doubt many could live a week the way we have. but you said what most important, our spirit, our loved ones. my son told me he didnt care about keeping the house for his sake. he and i have been living in my bedroom since my illness anyway. so that means we only use about 200sf out of 2000. im hoping my son will attend college stay on campus. all i need is an efficency. he can sleep on the end of the bed or the floor to visit.  i already have mini fridge/ microwave upstairs. since i began thinking like this and shut out the rest of the house and its problems, i have felt relieved. all year ive been wanting someone to come help me organize my stuff. now im like thinki ng of just keeping my pictures and keepsakes, and leaving everything else behind me. i havent made any decisions, or taken any actions, but just mentally letting go of the material things ive been trying to maintain or replace has been like a burden lifted. i actually opened my utilty bill, read $456 sat it down and went to bed last night. just last month, i would have went into anxiety attack and worry mode. not sleepping, barely eating until id made myself even sicker. hearing your testimony of letting go, really confirmed my faith and strenghthen my new attitude about whats important. instead of shame over idea of losing my possessions, you expressed so well that i should feel stronger as i replace material with spiritual. god bless